Spurs Nation

As giddy as the Spurs have been at Leonard’s offensive production to open the season — he is averaging a team-best 21.3 points heading into Wednesday’s game at Washington — they are even more ecstatic about this:

Last season’s NBA Defensive Player of the Year appears to have discovered another gear on that end of the floor as well.

Dubious?

Just ask four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant of Oklahoma City, who struggled through a 6-of-19 performance on opening night with Leonard surgically attached to him.

Or ask Brooklyn’s Joe Johnson, a former All-Star, who went 1 for 7 while wearing Leonard like an ill-fitting suit.

Or ask New York’s Carmelo Anthony, another former scoring champ turned to mush in Leonard’s big mitts. Anthony went 4 of 17 in the Spurs’ win over the Knicks on Monday.

Leonard’s final line against New York: 18 points, 14 rebounds, two steals and four blocks — including one against Anthony that could have qualified as assault.

“There are very few best players in the league who play both ends,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “I think that’s what makes him special.”

Indeed, there aren’t many ace stoppers in the NBA who can also call themselves big-time scorers.

Typically players asked to shoulder the type of offensive load the Spurs expect of Leonard this season — even with the addition of LaMarcus Aldridge — are offered a less taxing assignment on the other end.

Leonard instead gets to guard a parade of All-Stars.

The list of players to garner first-place votes in last season’s Defensive Player of the Year voting and average better than 20 points was one name: New Orleans’ Anthony Davis.

Leonard has a chance to join him this season.

Defense has been Leonard’s calling card since he entered the league in 2011. It was a way for him to help immediately on a team that, at the time, was still running its offense through Tony Parker.

Early on, Popovich’s inclination was to mold Leonard into Bruce Bowen 2.0.

“He happens to be somebody who we were able to capture at the beginning of his career and start to focus on what he can do the easiest — defense, rebound, run the floor,” Popovich said. “Thankfully, he’s continued to make that an emphasis in his game and not forgotten about it for the sake of offense.”

Leonard’s defensive prowess should come in handy Wednesday against Washington’s high-scoring backcourt duo of John Wall and Bradley Beal.

He is a major factor fueling the Spurs’ early rise to third in the league in defensive efficiency.

Leonard has also been the Spurs’ most consistent offensive player.

The sample size is small, but so far Leonard is averaging 18 field-goal attempts per game, up more than five from last season.

He is shooting 48.6 percent, up slightly from 2014-15, and has opened a season with four consecutive double-digit scoring outings for the first time in his career.

“We want him to score,” said Parker, more of a playmaker than scorer in the Spurs’ new order. “This is his team now, with LaMarcus.”

A shining sequence for Leonard’s burgeoning two-way game came in the second quarter against the Knicks.

One on end, he swallowed Anthony whole, ripping the ball from the Knicks star from behind. The play went in the books as a block, but it could have been a steal.

That jump-started a fast break that Leonard ended with a transition 3-pointer.

Afterward, Parker pretended to be unimpressed by Leonard’s double-dose of domination.

“That’s what the best players do,” Parker said with a shrug.

So is Leonard now considered one of the best?

“He’s getting there,” Parker said.

That might be the scariest thought of all for future Spurs’ opponents. Leonard is getting there, but he isn’t there yet.